Changing your shoes can change your life.
Hyperbole? Not in the slightest.
If you’ve ever suffered from severe foot pain, you already know that it can shrink your entire world. You come home from work miserable. You can’t exercise. Can’t travel. Can’t walk around the block. Can’t do any of the things you used to love for more than a few minutes at a time.
Your feet are the foundation that your entire body is built upon. A building with a faulty foundation will develop problems everywhere—walls, ceilings, windows.
Likewise, if your feet hurt, you can’t exercise and take care of your overall health the way you need to. It’s a vicious cycle. A negative feedback loop. It affects every part of your life.
It doesn’t have to be that way. But first, a look at how things got to this point.
Your Feet Just Might Not Be Built for Modern Life
Here’s the root of the problem for most folks.
A world filled with hard, flat concrete sidewalks and tile floors is a relatively recent innovation in human history. These kinds of surfaces place a lot of pressure on feet, especially if you spend most of your day standing and walking.
Simply put, not all feet are equally up to this grueling task. Each pair of feet and ankles—all 7 billion or so currently walking planet earth—features a slightly different shape and structure, and move slightly differently. These variations may be subtle, but they can make a big difference in terms of how quickly feet tire and how likely they are to develop chronic pain just from daily life.
More than that, though? Again, because feet are the foundation, misalignments here can create a negative chain reaction all the way up the legs and spine.
Unfortunately, many of today’s most popular shoe styles and brands may not be able to fully make up the gap, either. Of course, we don’t help our own case when we buy and wear flimsy flip flops, stiff high heels, or any kind of shoes that don’t fit properly or provide much in the way of support or cushioning.
Vionic Shoes: Giving Your Feet What They Need
There is, however, one shoe maker in particular we feel is doing a great job making fashionable, comfortable—and more importantly, supportive—shoes and sandals for the general public: Vionic. We like them so much that we sell them in our office.
Their shoes are built with many features that support a natural, stable, and biomechanically efficient alignment:
Deep heel cups provide stability for the foot and ankle
Full contact insole (Orthaheel technology) hugs the curve of your feet to provide comfort, support, and proper foot alignment
Midsoles that are both firm and flexible provide support but also move with your feet
Vionic was founded by a podiatrist, and the shoes are designed in collaboration with a team of podiatric surgeons, MDs, physical therapists, and other foot and ankle biomechanics experts. Most of the product lines are explicitly approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association. This means that, unlike almost all other shoe brands, Vionic shoes actually promote good foot health.
In fact, in a peer-reviewed study, heel pain sufferers who wore Vionic contoured sandals saw a significant reduction in pain levels when compared to those who wore ordinary flip flops. In other words, you don’t have to choose between your comfy, casual footwear and living without pain.
They’re Fashionable, Too
Of course, as soon as someone hears that a shoe is “designed and approved by podiatrists,” their first though is probably something boxy, ugly, and boring.
Go ahead and admit it. That was probably on your mind.
Well, not only are Vionic shoes comfortable and supportive, but they also look great and come in styles that you probably never thought your podiatrist would approve of:
- Sandals
- Heels
- Wedges
- Flats
- Slippers
- Boots
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of colors and styles in the lineup
Trust us: no one is going to give the side eye to your “special” shoes. If anything, they’ll compliment you on how cute they look and ask where you got them!
They’re Backed by a Guarantee
Vionic supports all its products with a 30-day money back guarantee. Since we’re a Vionic-authorized retailer, we are happy to process any returns for you if you’re not satisfied with your shoes within that timeframe.
We highly doubt it’ll come to that, of course—the shoes really are that good. For some people, they’re good enough to change their lives.
Vionic shoes are just one more tool in our toolkit for helping you get rid of foot pain and return to living your best life—shoes, orthotics, physical therapy, massage, surgery, and more.
If pain is holding you back, give the Foot & Ankle Surgical Associates a call today at (360) 754-3338.
